Victories and Setbacks

It's amazing to see how much change a year can be in a persons life. I feel so different from how I was a year before. At this time last year I was still getting accustomed to the idea that I had cancer, which even at times now, it was hard to believe.
When my friends are feeling down I tell them success breeds success. If you do everything the best you can than other things will fall into place. The one thing you have to do is force yourself to do the best you can no matter the situation or how you feel. Life will continue on, even when you just want it to stop. We can't let it go without us. We must pick ourselves up and keep pushing. Make the most out of the moment at hand.

yes, we bought matching shirts. Also this is my gf ,Shelby; she is short.

Recently I accomplished another thing on my bucket list. I had always wanted to see the Foo Fighters Live, and luckily last year I heard they were coming to Memphis. I bought the tickets then and there, almost a whole year in advance. I had also bought the insurance on those tickets because I was unsure if I would be in the condition to actually go...or even alive for that matter. I was blessed with no symptoms until the concert and was able to enjoy it to the fullest.   It was a small victory in my book. I was really enjoying the concert and I believe I also made Shelby into a true foo lover.


Cold is moving in and the heat is leaving for rest of the year. Sadly there will be no more sandals and shorts.  With the change in weather I also have some bad news. Last week I was beginning to have what felt like the onset of symptoms. I wasn't scheduled to see the doctor for another month, so I called in and asked how I should tackle this issue. We had an MRI done that night at 9pm and an appointment the next morning at 9am. They found that the pons have grown 3mm in both 2 of 3 dimensions. It isn't too much to be concerned about yet, but it means the cancer is growing faster than what the chemo is killing. It has probably become resistant to the chemo. 9 months of the stuff is pretty good for completely symptom free, so I am happy it lasted as long as it did. I suppose we will be going to the next chemo, or we may stay on this one until it is totally ineffective. We will find out next week when we visit my neuro-oncologist in Vanderbilt. There is still a lot to be thankful for even though the cancer seems to be gaining ground once again. I had 7 months of basically symptom free living, I enjoyed the summer months by playing tons of tennis and swimming. So I appreciate Temodar for that opportunity.

I have decided to ramp up my diet to new levels. I have been ingesting about 60-30-10 fat-protein-carbs the past few months. Much more lenient than what I was doing when I first started the diet. I haven't really been counting carbs as much as estimating and my protein to fat intake has been pretty lenient as well. I am pretty sure I haven't been going over my carbload but have been in-taking too much protein. Too much protein causes your body to use the excess in a process call neoglucogenesis, where the body makes glucose out of excess protein, which is probably why I have been testing low on ketones. My body produces them but not enough to full my body. So I have been eating grotesque amounts of healthy fats the past week and I am registering much higher ketones. However my Blood glucose level is still hovering around 80 so I need to do better. I decided to try and get my blood glucose to around 70 for 2 months and also change my diet to 80-15-5 fat-protein-carb. So hopefully I will see some effects. Already I am noticing symptom changes depending on my diet. I had wings yesterday with our friends, and while they were good they lacked fat. I felt more symptoms then than I did today upon eat huge amounts of fat and basically not having much symptoms. My guess is the glucose feeds the tumor and in turn creates inflammation which causes the symptoms. So while it may not control the growth it keeps the inflammation in check. our bodies are weird.

Ill update what we decide to do next week. I have a big week, 3 test for school, 2 doctor visit, 1 partridge in a pear tree. Keep on pushing forward and I will update soon.